No dust in cyberspace?: the effects of internet technology on perceptions of archives

Drawing on research into digital technologies and their effects on society and archives, as well as research on the public image of archives, this thesis examines whether technological changes, specifically the Internet, have had any effects on public perceptions of archives and if so to determine the nature of those effects. It relies on a survey to measure possible effects of Internet technology on perceptions of archives. Findings suggest that there are a number of ways in which the Internet may be affecting perceptions of archives, including prompting both increased expectations for the provision of digital information and materials and also a decrease in the perceived accessibility and value of archives; adding possible definitions for what may be considered an archive ; changing which tasks people associate most strongly with archives; and altering which stereotypes people are most likely to associate with archives. Responses also suggest that there are a number of influences besides the Internet which may affect the stereotypes applied to archives

Arresting Justice: Juvenile Arrests in Chicago 2009 & 2010

Six million Americans a year have involuntary contact with the police, excluding traffic stops (Weaver and Lerman, 2010). These encounters are often especially fraught and traumatizing for youth. Young people of color, in particular, have spoken out eloquently about the unwanted contacts with police in their communities.In Chicago, thousands of juveniles are arrested every year by law enforcement. There are six possible decision points1 in the interaction between police and young people. Police have the power to decide the following:Whether to conduct an investigatory stop involving a young person;Whether to arrest a young person;Whether to release a young person from police custody with a station adjustment;Whether to refer a young person to Juvenile Court or to the Felony Review Division of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office for prosecution;Whether to release a young person from police custody with no charges; andWhether to request that a young person be held in detention until his initial court appearance. Each of these decision points involves the police officers' use of discretion. These points of contact determine whether or not a particular young person will ultimately be referred to court and held in detention.While we know that thousands of young people in Chicago come into contact with law enforcement daily, there is no broad-based public outcry over this reality. Arresting Justice is an attempt to provide relevant, timely and accessible data about juvenile arrests to community members in Chicago in the hopes of spurring action. The sponsors of this report are First Defense Legal Aid and Project NIA.First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA) has been dedicated to issues of indigent defense, police accountability, and the protection of civil rights for over 15 years. FDLA's mission is two-pronged: to ensure equal justice to people in custody at Chicago Police stations and to educate the people of Chicago about the power of their Constitutional rights during police encounters.Project NIA's mission is to dramatically reduce the reliance on arrest, detention, and incarceration for addressing youth crime and to instead promote the use of restorative and transformative practices, a concept that relies on community-based alternatives. Through community engagement, education, participatory action research, and capacity-building, Project NIA facilitates the creation of community-focused responses to violence and crime.Both organizations believe that the first step to dramatically reducing juvenile arrests in Chicago is to mobilize our broader community to address the problem. Timely and relevant data documenting the scope of the issue is critical to such mobilization efforts. We hope that this report serves as a clarion call to those who are interested in preventing youth from getting caught up in the juvenile and criminal legal systems

The PLoS Community Journals

2005 will see the launch of three new open access journals from the Public Library of Science - PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, and PLoS Pathogen

Frequency and Circadian Timing of Eating May Influence Biomarkers of Inflammation and Insulin Resistance Associated with Breast Cancer Risk.

Emerging evidence suggests that there is interplay between the frequency and circadian timing of eating and metabolic health. We examined the associations of eating frequency and timing with metabolic and inflammatory biomarkers putatively associated with breast cancer risk in women participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination 2009-2010 Survey. Eating frequency and timing variables were calculated from 24-hour food records and included (1) proportion of calories consumed in the evening (5 pm-midnight), (2) number of eating episodes per day, and (3) nighttime fasting duration. Linear regression models examined each eating frequency and timing exposure variable with C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations and the Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR). Each 10 percent increase in the proportion of calories consumed in the evening was associated with a 3 percent increase in CRP. Conversely, eating one additional meal or snack per day was associated with an 8 percent reduction in CRP. There was a significant interaction between proportion of calories consumed in the evening and fasting duration with CRP (p = 0.02). A longer nighttime fasting duration was associated with an 8 percent lower CRP only among women who ate less than 30% of their total daily calories in the evening (p = 0.01). None of the eating frequency and timing variables were significantly associated with HOMA-IR. These findings suggest that eating more frequently, reducing evening energy intake, and fasting for longer nightly intervals may lower systemic inflammation and subsequently reduce breast cancer risk. Randomized trials are needed to validate these associations

Safety of dietary camelina oil supplementation in healthy, adult dogs

This study aimed to determine whether camelina oil is safe for use in canine diets, using canola oil and flax oil as controls, as they are similar and generally regarded as safe (GRAS) for canine diets. A total of thirty privately-owned adult dogs of various breeds (17 females; 13 males), with an average age of 7.2 ± 3.1 years (mean ± SD) and a body weight (BW) of 27.4 ± 14.0 kg were used. After a 4-week wash-in period using sunflower oil and kibble, the dogs were blocked by breed, age, and size and were randomly allocated to one of three treatment oils (camelina (CAM), flax (FLX), or canola (OLA)) at a level of 8.2 g oil/100 g total dietary intake. Body condition score (BCS), BW, food intake (FI), and hematological and select biochemical parameters were measured at various timepoints over a 16-week feeding period. All of the data were analyzed with ANOVA using the PROC GLIMMIX of SAS. No biologically significant differences were seen between the treatment groups in terms of BW, BCS, FI, and hematological and biochemical results. Statistically significant differences noted among some serum biochemical results were considered small and were due to normal biological variation. These results support the conclusion that camelina oil is safe for use in canine nutrition

Telemedicine Facilitates CHF Home Health Care for Those with Systolic Dysfunction

An estimated 5 million Americans have congestive heart failure (CHF) and one in five over the age of 40 will develop CHF. There are numerous examples of CHF patients living beyond the years normally expected for people with the disease, usually attributed to taking an active role in disease management. A relatively new alternative for CHF outpatient care is telemedicine and e-health. We investigated the effects of a 6-week in-home telemedicine education and monitoring program for those with systolic dysfunction on the utilization of health care resources. We also measured the effects of the unit 4.5 months after its removal (a total of 6 months post introduction of the unit into the home). Concurrently, we assessed participants' perceptions of the value of having a telemedicine unit. Participants in the telemedicine group reported weighing more times a week with less variability than did the control group. Telemedicine led to a reduction in physician and emergency department visits and those in the experimental group reported the unit facilitating self-care, though this was not significantly different from the control group (possibly due to small sample size). These findings suggest a possibility for improvement in control of CHF when telemedicine is implemented. Our review of the literature also supports the role of telemedicine in facilitating home health care and self-management for CHF patients. There are many challenges still to be addressed before this potential can be reached and further research is needed to identify opportunities in telemedicine

Response of Root Growth and Development to Nitrogen and Potassium Deficiency as well as microRNA-Mediated Mechanism in Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

The mechanism of miRNA-mediated root growth and development in response to nutrient deficiency in peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is still unclear. In the present study, we found that both nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) deficiency resulted in a significant reduction in plant growth, as indicated by the significantly decreased dry weight of both shoot and root tissues under N or K deficiency. Both N and K deficiency significantly reduced the root length, root surface area, root volume, root vitality, and weakened root respiration, as indicated by the reduced O2 consuming rate. N deficiency significantly decreased primary root length and lateral root number, which might be associated with the upregulation of miR160, miR167, miR393, and miR396, and the downregulation of AFB3 and GRF. The primary and lateral root responses to K deficiency were opposite to that of the N deficiency condition. The upregulated miR156, miR390, NAC4, ARF2, and AFB3, and the downregulated miR160, miR164, miR393, and SPL10 may have contributed to the growth of primary roots and lateral roots under K deficiency. Overall, roots responded differently to the N or K deficiency stresses in peanuts, potentially due to the miRNA-mediated pathway and mechanism

Intervalley coherence and intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in rhombohedral trilayer graphene

Rhombohedral graphene multilayers provide a clean and highly reproducible platform to explore the emergence of superconductivity and magnetism in a strongly interacting electron system. Here, we use electronic compressibility and local magnetometry to explore the phase diagram of this material class in unprecedented detail. We focus on rhombohedral trilayer in the quarter metal regime, where the electronic ground state is characterized by the occupation of a single spin and valley isospin flavor. Our measurements reveal a subtle competition between valley imbalanced (VI) orbital ferromagnets and intervalley coherent (IVC) states in which electron wave functions in the two momentum space valleys develop a macroscopically coherent relative phase. Contrasting the in-plane spin susceptibility of the IVC and VI phases reveals the influence of graphene's intrinsic spin-orbit coupling, which drives the emergence of a distinct correlated phase with hybrid VI and IVC character. Spin-orbit also suppresses the in-plane magnetic susceptibility of the VI phase, which allows us to extract the spin-orbit coupling strength of $\lambda \approx 50\mu$eV for our hexagonal boron nitride-encapsulated graphene system. We discuss the implications of finite spin-orbit coupling on the spin-triplet superconductors observed in both rhombohedral and twisted graphene multilayers